faintness

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. The state of being faint; loss of strength, or of consciousness, and self-control.

n. Want of vigor or energy.

n. Feebleness, as of color or light; lack of distinctness.

n. Faint-heartedness; timorousness; dejection.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. The state or condition of being faint; defect of strength; feebleness; deficiency of force, brightness, vividness, distinctness, or the like; want of vigor, energy, or heartiness; timorousness; dejection; irresolution.

Etymologies

faint +‎ -ness (Wiktionary)

Examples

When she asperged the warm water with cologne, -- it was her secret delight and greatest effort of economy to buy this cologne, -- she always had one little moment of what she called faintness -- that faintness which had veiled her eyes, and chained her hands, and stilled her throbbing bosom, when as a bride she came from the church with him.

His hands and feet were bound with iron: but his head, owing to faintness from the wounds he had received at Lumloch, was so bent down on his breast as he reclined on the boat, that I could not then see his face.

The sense of extension may be ranked amongst these appetites, since the deficiency of its object gives disagreeable sensation; when this happens in the arterial system, it is called faintness, and seems to bear some analogy to hunger and to cold; which like it are attended with emptiness of a part of the vascular system.

Mr Witherden, sir, a kind of faintness is upon my spirits — if you would do me the favour to ring the bell and order up a glass of something warm and spicy, I shall, notwithstanding what has passed, have a melancholy pleasure in drinking your good health.

Maybe it was the words, or the sudden wash of feeling, the sadness that came over me like a kind of faintness, that made me yearn forward as I said those last words, and meant them with all my heart even as I felt the metal of that crowbar in my hand, I loved you, too,